How do I start Teaching Bridge?
| 1 | Discover EBUTA!. This will give you access to all the services of the Association, including: | |
| on joining, the EBUTA Teaching Guide, a compendium of useful ideas and advice | ||
| infosheets, which are published three times a year, providing news, new ideas, offers etc | ||
| other reference sources, some free and others at discounted prices, such as An Introduction to Tournament Direction, the Teacher's Resource Manual, the Really Easy book series and other titles and publications | ||
| practical workshops on teaching techniques which are run at different times in all parts of the country | ||
| a qualification route to full and professional membership | ||
| someone on the end of a telephone to help with problems | ||
| 2 | Find out what your Local Education Authority offers in the way of bridge classes. Many teachers start with LEAs, as they provide teaching venues and find the students. Through the LEA you can find out who is teaching in your area (but check that they are EBUTA members, since not all LEA teaching can be recommended). Neither would it do any harm to let your LEA know that you are interested for the future. | |
| 3 | Help a local teacher with classes. Ask if you can sit in, offer to help with supervised practice, lend a hand with running the beginners' duplicate at your club (or even setting one up if it doesn't exist). Activities like these will give you a good feel for what teaching is like. | |
| 4 | Do some teaching yourself. A great idea is to find four friends and teach them MiniBridge. If it goes well they will want you to continue and teach them real bridge, too. | |
| 5 | Find out whether your local Adult Education centre offers the City and Guilds C&G 7307 stages 1 and 2, a certificate in Adult Teaching skills, as a part-time course. Most LEAs expect their bridge teachers to have this qualification; many provide training free of charge to those they employ. | |
| 6 | Attend a basic Club Tournament Directors' training course. You will want to run mini competitions in class and this will give you the confidence to do so. English Bridge regularly publishes details of course dates and venues, or they can be obtained from the EBU Development Department at Aylesbury. All courses are one-day events and are run all over the country during the autumn, winter and spring months. | |
| 7 | Keep a log of all you do. You will find it helpful when approaching clubs or LEAs as a potential teacher, to show them what you've done, and it will support your application later for Full or Professional EBUTA membership. |
- Copyright © The English Bridge Union